Chuck Sweeny: Hopeful signs of bipartisanship in Congress

According to a Gallup Poll published June 26: “Thirty-four percent of Americans approve of the job the Democrats in Congress are doing and 26 percent approve of the job the Republicans in Congress are doing."

According to a Gallup Poll published June 26: “Thirty-four percent of Americans approve of the job the Democrats in Congress are doing and 26 percent approve of the job the Republicans in Congress are doing. Both approval ratings are on the lower end of what Gallup has measured for each party, beginning in 1999.”

In truth, neither party has anything to brag about.

There are signs that senators and representatives are beginning to realize that if they were performing this poorly in the business world, they’d be fired.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid forced all but two members to come to a special meeting in the Old Senate Chamber to hammer out a compromise with Republicans that will allow some of President Barack Obama’s agency-head nominees go forward without a GOP filibuster. Reid, D-Nev., had to threaten to change the Senate rules essentially to end filibusters, something that neither side wanted.

And a bipartisan group of representatives and senators called No Labels has 81 members, fairly evenly divided among Republicans and Democrats, has been organized. Among them are Sen. Mark Kirk, a Republican from Highland Park, and Rep. Cheri Bustos, a Democrat from East Moline.

The coalition introduced nine bills Thursday that members hope will be passed as common-sense solutions to make government work efficiently, reduce waste and save money.

Bustos and Kirk are chief sponsors of one of the nine bills.

“Every year reports come out and point out inefficiencies, duplicated services, wasteful spending, and yet the findings are mostly ignored,” Bustos said. “The federal government is wasting billions of dollars every year and we have programs that are functioning inefficiently.”

Bustos’ bill would create a bipartisan commission with seven members to sort out government management practices to make programs more efficient and less duplicative.

Another bill she co-sponsors would take away lawmakers’ pay if the budget and all spending bills are not passed on time.

Other bills would move to a two-year budget cycle instead of one, end the assumption that budgets automatically increase every year, and coordinate electronic health records between the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments.

“We also have a bill that would make 50 percent cuts in travel budgets and replace some travel with video conferences,” Bustos said.

These bills they give you an idea of the efficiencies that could be made if our lawmakers just tightened the nuts and bolts of everyday government activities.

For instance, we probably don’t need to have government agencies spending millions on regional conferences at swanky hotels and hiring offbeat speakers. In the Internet era, the bureaucrats can just Skype it. We in the business world learned to do that years ago.